Political Conflict and the Challenges of Nigeria's Sustainable Development in the 21st Century

In Nigeria, political conflicts have been characterized by both the desire to gain the desired values and the desire to create instability, disunity, and overall underdevelopment. However, the retrogressive trends of the political conflict seem to facilitate instability in Nigeria’s socio-political development in the 21^st Century thereby creating challenges to the overall development of Africa. The paper, therefore, examines the challenges posed by the political conflicts to the Nigeria’s socio-political development in the 21^st Century. After qualitative assessment of available facts, the paper notes that the direct challenges of political conflicts manifested on the socio-political system in forms of strikes, election malfeasant, moral decadence, improper offerings in policies, and insurgencies in different part of the country as well as inadequate social infrastructures. Thus, it recommends that the country’s leadership need to be responsive by fighting against corruption, ethnicity, regionalism and sectionalism for the attainment of the stated goals for Nigeria’s sustainable development in the 21^st Century.